


Of Secret Millionaires and Rich Guy Codes

by SamCyberCat



Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 22:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10500483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamCyberCat/pseuds/SamCyberCat
Summary: Mae and Gregg have a totally serious and super philosophical debate about whether or not anyone actually wins on those competitions with huge money prizes that snack companies hold sometimes. And what if the winners have been hiding in Possum Springs this whole time?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write something for NitW and when this topic popped into my head it seemed like the sort of thing Mae and Gregg would talk about. So I hope you enjoy this pointless little one-shot about these two awesome friends.

There were posters plastered onto the window of the Snack Falcon that morning. A lot of them. Each one exactly the same. They were all arranged in a wonky line going across the middle of the window, like some sort of weird censor bar. When Mae got inside she realised that the poster invasion hadn't just infested the window. No, in fact almost every vertical space that it was possible to shove an advert onto displayed the same promotion, a dark blue background with neon pink text. The sole exception being the LED board, though its stubbornly red text read out the same message as it scrolled across:

_'BUY FIASCO FOR A CHANCE TO WIN $100,000! + OTHER GREAT PRIZES! RESTRICTIONS APPLY. NO PURCHASE NECCESARY.'_

“It's almost as if they're trying to tell me something,” Mae said, as she headed over to the counter where Gregg was slumped.

“Tell me about it! Can you believe that Christine made me put up all those posters? As if I don't have enough to do!” huffed Gregg. He was putting on a good act of looking exhausted, but Mae wasn't buying it.

“What exactly do you do around here? I've still never seen another person in this place,” she replied.

“It gets busy during the rush, I've told you that. Not my fault you keep missing the rush,” Gregg insisted.

“Okay, next time one of these rushes happens you need to message me so I can come over here and take photos. That way the world can have evidence,” said Mae.

“Dude! I'm too busy during the rush to message anybody. You'll just have to get your ass outta bed earlier if you wanna see,” Gregg countered. Then he motioned towards a display stand on the counter that was advertising the Fiasco competition, “Can you believe that I'm supposed to sell fifty Fiasco sodas a day for this? As if I keep count of how many I'm selling!”

“That won't be hard though, people buy that stuff anyway. I'd buy one even if there wasn't some competition running and even if I got one today I'd probably just throw the can away without checking if I've won,” Mae admitted.

They both stared at the chiller for a moment, taking in the coloured cans of Fiasco as if they were being judged by them for their lack of commitment to winning $100,000.

“Wouldn't you even be curious?” Gregg asked.

“Nobody ever wins on those things, Gregg,” dismissed Mae.

“That's not true! One time Angus won a free slushie from one of those competition things. Then we had three of them, so I had the extra one and got, like, a mega brainfreeze.” Gregg said this as if he didn't just make himself a slushie from the machine for free whenever he wanted anyway; “I think Angus is the only person in the world who ever checks those codes to see if he's won. Maybe the reason that nobody ever wins the big prizes is because they keep throwing them away.”

“But if people won more to start with then maybe they'd believe these dumb things actually have prizes and not throw them away,” Mae countered.

“Yeah, if some dude came in here and told me that they'd won some big money then I'd shut up shop and get the codes off the rest of the Fiascos myself. I mean, it says no purchase necessary, so who'd wanna waste money buying all of them?” said Gregg, “Man, it'd be so nice to have $100,000... Then I wouldn't have to work myself to the bone in this place everyday.”

At that point Mae could have made another jab at the amount of work Gregg doesn't do, but instead she'd had a thought about the people who may or may not be winning these competitions. She looked back from the chiller to Gregg, eyes suddenly wide.

“Hey, so maybe people do win but they just... don't tell us,” she suggested, “Think about it – if you won all that money, would you tell everyone? Maybe your close friends and family, sure, but if all of Possum Springs knew then they'd just be bothering you for money all the time. I bet there are some secret millionaires hiding around here, pretending to be normal people.”

“You're right! We should sleuth them out and steal their cash,” Gregg gasped, “I wonder who it could be... Not Germ, right? Then again maybe his act is just so good that he has us all fooled. Or what about Pastor K? I bet she'd say that all her praying as finally paid off.”

“Nah, if it was Pastor K then she'd share the money with everyone for sure,” Mae replied, “Maybe whoever has the money is just too good and we'll never figure them out... That's not going to stop me from keeping an eye out for anyone who suddenly has an expensive-looking watch though.”

“It's always the watches. That must be how rich people tell each other apart,” Gregg agreed, “I mean, no one actually needs watches now that we have cell phones, so anyone who has one is just showing off how much money they have, right? That's totally the rich guy code – the fancier the watch you have, the more millions you have!”

“We've figured them out!” Mae stated, “And you know what this means?”

“That we should steal more watches before the pawn shop shuts down like everything else in this hole does?” checked Gregg.

“Noooo! That we need to take part in the rich guy code!” Mae answered, “If one of us ever wins loads of Fiascola dollars, then we need to wear a fancy watch so that the other one will know. That way we can keep our money a secret to everyone except the people we trust.”

“I like where this is going, but if we do watches then wouldn't the other rich guys know that we're one of them now?” said Gregg.

“Yeah, you're right... But would they even care? They're already rich,” asked Mae.

“Dude, that's totally how rich people stay rich, by killing each other. We might as well be painting targets on our foreheads!” Gregg wailed.

“Okay, so no watches, nothing too obvious...” Mae hummed, “Maybe we shouldn't be flashing off our money like that anyway. Who'd want to waste it on watches when instead we could, like, buy all of Bright Harbour for you and Angus to live in and I could buy Mom and Dad their house back and maybe even buy a college for Bea... Man, there'd be no money left for stupid watches. So instead, how about we come up with code words? Then if one of us gets rich we can say the code words to each other and know what's up.”

“I like it! But it has to be something we don't normally say,” Gregg added, “Just so we don't accidentally think we're rich.”

“True...” Mae said. She raised her hand up to her chin as she tried to think of something that neither she nor Gregg would ever usually say, but also wasn't too suspicious, since they didn't want people to catch them out; “...How about 'Fiasco Fox isn't as dreamy as he used to be'?”

“Nah, I said that to Angus last week,” Gregg replied.

“What? How could you?” Mae gaped.

“I'm sorry, but ever since they redesigned him he just doesn't do it for me any more,” said Gregg, with a shrug, “We could try something like 'wanna hike out to the porn log'!”

“Too many people know about that though,” Mae reasoned, “What if we say it and someone overhears and wants to come with us?”

“Wouldn't be so bad if they actually know where it is. I'm kinda curious,” Gregg mused.

“Focus, Gregg, focus!” warned Mae.

“Okay, okay, okay... then what about something weird, like 'I just saw Little Joe the other day'?” Gregg tried, he looked like coming up with these potential codes was more of a mental workout for him than anything he'd done in the Snack Falcon that morning, which might well be the case.

“But what if we do see Little Joe? We've got to keep that option open,” said Mae, “Look, I think we're going about this the wrong way. We can just say something completely crazy like 'I don't feel like pizza today', that way people would leave us alone as well, because who wants to hang out with someone who doesn't want pizza?”

“Hmm... if we go with that one then it relies on us wanting pizza everyday for the rest of our lives,” hummed Gregg, “...So sure! That one will work!”

“Glad we got that settled,” Mae concluded, with a satisfied nod.

“So are you buying a Fiascola or what?” Gregg asked.

“Nah, no money,” replied Mae.

“Dude! We went on a journey and you're not even gonna try?” Gregg whined, “Come on, I'll give you a free one!”

“Your boss should seriously put cameras up in this place,” Mae replied.

The door opened after that, which was enough of a distraction to turn both their heads, because Mae had never seen an actual customer other than her and she didn't usually buy anything, so it wasn't as if she counted as a customer anyway. But it was just Germ, who headed over to the chiller, took out five Lime Fiascos and dumped them down on the counter.

“You stocking up?” Gregg asked.

“Yep. Got a gaming marathon,” Germ told him.

“Sounds sweet! Hey, if you've got time this evening why don't you come over to the Clik Clak with us guys? We could all get some halfway decent pizza to share?” offered Gregg.

Germ didn't even stop to think about this before he replied, “Nah. I don't feel like pizza today. Well, see you.”

With that, he gathered up his soda cans and left, with Mae and Gregg staring at him as he headed out of the door. It took a few moments before either of them spoke up again.

“...You don't think that Germ's a secret millionaire, do you?” Gregg asked.

“No? I mean, it's not like he knows about our pizza code. So it must just be a coincidence, right?” Mae answered. And when Gregg didn't reply, she pressed, “...Right?”

“Y-yeah. Right. Sure,” agreed Gregg, sounding about as unconvinced as Mae felt, “But just in case, we should try not to piss him off in future.”

“The guy's got explosives in his house, I wasn't going to piss him off anyway,” assured Mae.

“True, true... So anyway, you up for pizza later?” said Gregg.

“Am I ever!” cheered Mae.

Maybe neither of them lived in a world where they were mega rich after winning some soda competition, but as long as they could have pizza then Mae didn't think it was such a bad world really. So maybe pizza was the true pizza after all.


End file.
